Putting here: Saturday 10/05/2024, late night.
Unedited.
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Recently, I’ve been thinking about the aloe grape vape I bought from Andalouse Market (now 7 Clouds, but I refuse to call it that) on Howe Street. The first vape I bought by myself and for myself was also from Andalouse, also the Vozol brand. It was the watermelon flavor, for junior year Spring Fling. The first time I took molly, when I woke up with a stiff jaw but the most cozy and happy feeling. I set up a perfect day, knowing that the post-molly dip could be bad. I slept in, it was rainy and green and I saw the tree leaves from my 5th floor dorm room balcony. The next night I stayed over with a friend who was house- and dog-sitting. We got soft ramen, and soft softserve, except for the little caramel crunches which I ate like a dog eating a chunk of ice with the back of their jaws.
I got this aloe grape vape October 2023 and it was most definitely a stress thing. I have a few distinctive, painful memories with it. Most specifically - right after Ecology class and sitting in the OML parking lot in a patch of hidden sun, reading WhatsApp and checking Instagram and hitting it, with tears in my eyes. Exhausted, on the New Jersey transit late at night and letting the smoke go above my seat, as I was slumped and laying down waiting for time to pass and to get home. Mostly, the way I remember it is in a haze, simply the knowledge it was there. That sweet flavor, sharing it, putting it on the table for everyone to take. Hey, can I get some of your little guy. Sitting on the ground outside the White House, head aching because of thirst, gentle passing. Driving on two hours of sleep, keeping one hand on the wheel and with the other grabbing it out of the cup holder. Grilling in the backyard, hitting it or hitting theirs and chatting nothing. That sort of stuff. Paradise by Snowsa, One of your girls by Troye Sivan, Hate it or love it by The Game, Ouda by Hamid Al Shaeri. 2 You by Mariah the Scientist, on repeat.
No addiction is ever good, but I’ve totally been missing the aloe grape recently. It was a sort of - self soothing thing. At least, the way I think of it. I would go, and hit it, and have a moment of peace and also a moment of allowing pain, and stress, and allowing myself to feel it; to actually feel it, and to do something about it. It was somehow, a moment with reality. And a little buzz, which made me breathe deep and also disassociate and reassociate somehow both at the same time. Taking a break, then going back and hitting it and feeling it in my body, a little unstable and unsteady which forced me to steady myself. That was important. It was a choice, to buy it. That was also important. A choice that I know, and knew, logically that was not good for my physical body and potentially also my mental. But the way I think of it now in my memory is as a little life buoy. Comforting and with me and as full of complexities - good for me, bad for me, so on - as anything and everything inherently is.
I will think and write more. But this, so far.
November 2024. New Haven. Thursday night.
The only photos I could find. She was so loyal. I am grateful. Somehow it makes me feel loved, thinking about the memories. I will always have me.